A Castle in Spain Part 41

Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lido, Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lay."

After this there followed another prolonged silence. Talbot was now the first to speak.

"Brooke," said she, in her low, soft, tremulous voice, which had died down almost to a whisper, "we know the secrets of one another's hearts. Oh, Brooke! Brooke! why have we never met before? Oh, Brooke!

how strangely we have drifted together! How much we have learned about each other! Is Fate so bitter as to make us drift away, after--after--"

Her voice died away altogether, and she turned her face aside and bowed down her head.

Brooke looked at her for a moment, and seemed about to take her hand, but he conquered this impulse and resolutely averted his eyes.

"Don't know, I'm sure," said he, at last, with an affectation of airy indifference.

"It would take a man with a head as long as a horse to answer such a question as that. Talbot, lad, you shouldn't plunge so deep into the mysteries of being."

After this there was another silence, and then Talbot looked up at Brooke with her deep, dark glance, and began to speak in a calm voice, which, however, did not fail to thrill through the heart of Brooke as he listened.

"Brooke," said she, "you have your own way. Your way is to conceal a most tender and pitying heart under a rough or at least an indifferent manner--to hide the deepest feeling under a careless smile, and pretend to be most volatile and flippant when you are most serious. You can perform heroic actions as though they were the merest trifles, and lay down your life for a friend with an idle jest. You make nothing of yourself and all of others. You can suffer, and pretend that you enjoy it; and when your heart is breaking, you can force your voice to troll out verses from old songs as though your chief occupation in life were nonsense, and that alone. And this is the man," continued Talbot, in a dreamy tone, like that of one soliloquizing--"this is the man that I found by chance in my distress; the man that responded to my very first appeal by the offer of his life; that went into the jaws of death merely to bring me food; the man that gave up all the world for me--his duty, his love, his life; the man that has no other purpose now but to save me, and who, when his whole frame is quivering with anguish, can smile, and sing, and--"

"Well, what of it?" interrupted Brooke, harshly. "What of it, oh, thou searcher of hearts? And, moreover, as to nonsense, don't you know what the poet says?

"'A little nonsense now and then Is relished by the wisest men.'

Moreover, and, yea, more, as to smiles and laughter, don't you know what another poet says?--Shakspeare, for instance:

"''Tis better to laugh than be sighing;'

or, as Lord Bacon, or Plato, or somebody else says, 'Laugh and grow fat.' And didn't John Bunyan prefer the House of Mirth to the House of Mourning?

"'John Bunyan was a tinker bold, His name we all delight in; All day he tinkered pots and pans, All night he stuck to writin'.

In Bedford streets bold Johnny toiled, An ordinary tinker; In Bedford jail bold Johnny wrote-- Old England's wisest thinker.

About the Pilgrims Johnny wrote, Who made the emigration; And the Pilgrim Fathers they became Of the glorious Yankee nation.

Ad urbem ivit Doodlius c.u.m Caballo et calone, Ornavit plnma pilenm Et diiit:--Maccaroni!'

"Excuse me," he continued; "you don't understand dog-Latin, do you, Talbot?"

"No," said she, with a smile, "but I understand you, Brooke."

"Well," said Brooke, "but apart from the great question of one another which is just now fixing us on the rack, or on the wheel, or pressing us to any other kind of torment, and considering the great subject of mirthfulness merely in the abstract, do you not see how true it is that it is and must be the salt of life, that it preserves all living men from sourness, and decay, and moral death? Now, there's Watts, for instance--Isaac Watts, you know, author of that great work, 'Watts's Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Infant Minds,' or it may have been 'Watts's Divine Songs and Spiritual Hymns for Infant Mind.' I really don't remember. It's of no consequence.

Now, what was Watts? Why, on my side altogether. Read his works.

Consult him in all emergencies. If anything's on your mind, go and find Watts on the mind. It'll do you good. And as the song says:

"'Oh, the Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D., Was a wonderful boy at rhyme; So let every old bachelor fill up his gla.s.s And go in for a glorious time.

_Chorus_.--Let dogs delight To bark and bite, But we'll be jolly, my lads, to-night.'"

During this last little diversion Brooke never turned his eyes toward Talbot. She was close by his side; but he stood looking out of the window, and in that att.i.tude kept rattling on in his most nonsensical way. It was only in this one fact of his careful manner of eluding the grasp, so to speak, of Talbot's eyes, that an observer might discern anything but the most careless gayety. To Talbot, however, there was something beneath all this, which was very plainly visible; and to her, with her profound insight into Brooke's deeper nature, all this nonsense offered nothing that was repellent; on the contrary, she found it most touching and most sad. It seemed to her like the effort of a strong man to rid himself of an overmastering feeling--a feeling deep within him that struggled forever upward and would not be repressed. It rose up constantly, seeking to break through all bounds; yet still he struggled against it; and still, as he felt himself grow weaker in the conflict, he sought refuge in fresh outbursts of unmeaning words. But amidst it all Talbot saw nothing except the man who had gone forth to die for her, and in all his words heard nothing except the utterance of that which proved the very intensity of his feelings.

"Oh yes," continued Brooke, "there are lots of authorities to be quoted in favor of mirthfulness. I've already mentioned Bunyan and Watts. I'll give you all the rest of the old divines.

"'Oh, Baxter is the boy for me, So fall of merriment and glee: And when I want a funny man, I turn to any old Puritan:-- A Puritan, A funny man, I read the works of a Puritan!

Among the Puritan divines Old Cotton Mather brightest shines, And he could be a funny man, Because he was a Puritan:-- A Puritan, A funny man, Old Mather was a Puritan!

The old Blue-Laws, of all the best, Od Calvin made in solemn jest; For fun he never could tolerate.

Unless established by the State:-- A Puritan, A funny man, John Calvin was a Puritan!"

This eccentric song Brooke droned out in nasal tones and with a lachrymose whine to the strangest tune that ever was heard. At its close he heaved a sigh, and said:

"Well, it's dry work singing hymns all by myself, and you won't even 'jine' in the choruses, and so--I'll stop the machine."

Saying this, he turned away and went to the opposite side of the small loft, where he sat down with his head against the wall.

"Does any lady or gentleman present object to smoking?" said he, after a brief pause, as he drew forth his pipe and smoking materials.

"Because I propose to take a smoke, and I should like to know, just out of curiosity."

To this Talbot made no reply, but sat down opposite Brooke, in the same att.i.tude, and watched him as he smoked, which he proceeded to do without any further delay.

"You don't smoke, I believe, sir," said he, with all gravity.

Talbot said nothing.

"Well," said Brooke, "I wouldn't advise you to begin;" and with that he went on puffing away.

Brooke at last finished his smoke, after which he put his pipe in his pocket, and then, throwing his head back, sat with his eyes obstinately fixed on the ceiling.

Talbot remained in the same att.i.tude, without moving. She had kept her eyes all this time fixed on Brooke, and knew that he was avoiding her glance. All the same, however, she continued watching him, and was waiting patiently till she should catch his eye. But Brooke, as though aware of her purpose, avoided her, and still locked away.

Thus these two sat in utter silence for a long time.

It was Talbot who first broke the silence.

"Brooke," said she, in a soft, low voice, which sounded like a sigh.

"Well, Talbot," said Brooke, in a voice which was strangely altered from the somewhat hard tones of forced gayety in which he had last been speaking.

"Brooke," said Talbot, "I am miserable."